anythingbutgrey | war stories ficathon

War Stories: A Comment Ficathon

Welcome to the war stories ficathon. Some quick guidelines:

What can I prompt and how do I do so?

Basically whatever you want, as long as there's a core component of a war story therein. Can be pre-, post-, or intra-war as long as it is, at its core, about the war. I'm pretty general with my concept of fictional conflicts, so if you've got a battle or a zombie apocalypse or a revolution, you're good to go. That means you can take a fandom that has a canonical war (like, say, Harry Potter) or you can take a fandom that doesn't have a war (like, say, New Girl) and plop them into a Hunger Games war AU or a zombie apocalypse. Have fun with it. I'm grim about my war stories but you don't have to be.

Prompts should contain the following format:

Fandom (not optional, can be multi-fandom or crossover) - Characters/Ship (optional) - Timeline (optional) - Prompt (which may be a plot, song lyric, quote, etc., but is not optional)

In other words, you can leave a character and/or a ship, and/or a timeline, which are optional, and a prompt, which is not. If you want, you can just leave a set of song lyrics and see what people do with them. If you want, you can just leave a timeline with those lyrics, or a just a character, or all three.

How do I respond?

There are no restrictions in terms of word count, format, tense, point of view, etc. Please title all of your response fics as such in bold at the top of your comment (make sure to close the bold tag!) since LJ took out comment titles because they're dumb:

Title - Character/Ship - Timeline

Presumably, your fics will contain these three things even if they weren't in the prompt. You can also fill prompts that have already been filled. If something speaks to you, as it were, it doesn't matter if there's already fic for it. You can write your own.

How do I promote?

Here's a tumblr post (gen image if you have no idea who Mako Mori is in which case go see Pacific Rim ASAP and thank me later)

Promotion link with image:

Other banners:

More incoming

Text link:

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

boy with a broken soul, heart with a gaping hole

It's like this: you open your mouth, and you breathe in ash. You were born in a state of war, in a torn house, and you tell yourself that that should have made you resistant, better, at least, but it hasn't. You're still weak, a little boy with a scarred forehead and hands that reach for nothing. You are so pitiful it makes you want to run, shed the burden. You're like a snail, you realize: you wear your house on your back, your burden is your house, and you can't lose it no matter how fast you run.

One night you dreamt you were lightning; it was one of the nights you weren't a stag instead, your hooves drumming on the rain-soft soil. You struck, hard like diamond, and everything around you bent, and the shavings of your bolts dotted the inky sky with stars. The forest fills you with strange, heady dreams but when you wake up sweating there is a body besides you. You don't question it. She holds you until you stop shivering, doesn't tell you what a mess you are, what a poor savior you make.

In a way you're grateful that wizards do not seem to know Jesus, because if they did they would disqualify you from the messiah race in a blink. Hermione laughs when you say that, still dazed from sleep. In the forest it's hard to say what time it is. Ron is still gone but she's here and every morning you expect to see her gone too, the embers from the fire still red and her footsteps leading out. But she doesn't leave.

You count your blessings.

Over time you realize that no kindness is equal to hers. You still feel unsure, sometimes, that she will stay by your side; but when you tell her that she punches your arm and says, "Of course," suddenly fierce, her mouth a tight and beautiful line across her face. Your nights quiet down, and the pain dulls to an insistent ache: instead of the fire-hot pole in your stomach it's only the dull edge of a blade ransacking your insides.

She reads by the fire, frowning a little, her nose wrinkled to keep her glasses up. Her hair is messy but she still smiles and she never complains, and sometimes you think that she ought to be in your place, ought to be the one saving the world because then the world would have a chance. You don't tell her that. You wouldn't wish your fate on anyone.

Ron loved her, you knew that, you've always known that because he's always loved her. But you realize that you love her too, and when this hits you you shirk from it guiltily. You remember Ginny's face when you told her you were going away and she was stoic and brave and you didn't love her. But this girl you love, you love like survival, like breathing, and it's a betrayal to so many things you don't understand how it can feel so evident. She tells you to stop dreaming and think, Harry, think. She tells you you will win this war, no matter what happens, no matter who dies.

She gives you your hope, but sometimes you wonder who gives her hers.

She knows you so entirely and believes in you with such unflinching faith that it seems doubtful she would not know you love her, but she doesn't say and so you don't say either. Are there even words to say? I love you would be feeble and devoid of truth; you can't imagine saying to her the words worn down by thousands of tongues to express something so entirely new. So you don't say, you let it grow inside you like the plants you used to let Neville tell you about, the ones that are this deep, verdant green, whose flowers bloom only after exposition to the soft springtime sun. You try to remember what color they were, but the war took color from you, among other things.

Still, you do not give up, because this is what it is - love for her is color, companionship, flowers and the ability to breathe underwater. For her you feel like you can take one more step and even win this godforsaken war. (The truth is this: you will not win this war out of selflessness. If you do win it, you will win it for someone, because you are little and selfish and weak. You are not David. The stones you throw do not kill giants.)

war stories ficathon

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